Collaborate Disseminate
Bluebottle stings are a normal part of life for Australian beachgoers, but this summer has been particularly intense due to high winds. Continue reading Thousands Stung as Venomous ‘Jellyfish’ Invade Australian Beaches
In a recent paper in Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, researchers at Florida Atlantic University describe the process of building and testing five free-swimming soft robotic jellyfish. The paper contains build details and data on how three different variables – tentacle stiffness, stroke frequency, and stroke amplitude – affect the swimming characteristics of each bot. For a more in-depth build log, we found the original masters thesis by Jennifer Frame to be very thorough, including processes, schematics, parts lists, and even some Arduino code.
Though a landlubber may say the robots look more like a stumpy octopus than a jellyfish, according …read more
Continue reading Soft Robotic Jellyfish Get Pumped in the Atlantic
With a little mayo, they’re pretty tasty. Continue reading I Tried Futuristic Alcohol-Soaked Jellyfish and They’re Not Bad
How could you build an artificial tadpole? Or simulate the motion of a cilium? Those would be hard to do with mechanical means — even micromechanical because of their fluid motion. Researchers have been studying shape-programmable matter: materials that can change shape based on something like heat or magnetic field. However, most research in this area has relied on human intuition and trial and error to get the programmed shape correct. They also are frequently not very fast to change shape.
[Metin Sitti] and researchers at several institutions have found a way to make rapidly changing silicone rubber parts (PDF …read more
Continue reading Shape Programmable Matter is More Magnetic Magic
Mount an umbrella to a drone and there you go, you have a flying umbrella. When [Alan Kwan] tried to do just that he found it wasn’t quite so simple. The result, once he’d worked it out though, is haunting. You get an uneasy feeling like you’re underwater watching jellyfish floating around you.
A grad student in MIT’s ACT (Art, Culture and Technology) program, [Alan’s] idea was to produce a synesthesia-like result in the viewer by having an inanimate object, an umbrella, appear as an animate object, a floating jellyfish. He first tried simply attaching the umbrella to an off-the-shelf …read more
This new technique gives scientists a whole new perspective on the body’s insides. Continue reading Scientists Made Mice That Are See-Through, Shrunken, and Glow in the Dark
